


Storm in a Bottle.

by fearless_seas



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Memories, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-16 10:12:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16084001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearless_seas/pseuds/fearless_seas
Summary: Michael hasn't seen Mika since he lost his temper all those years ago... when they both strayed from who they used to be; and he will always miss him far more than he should.





	Storm in a Bottle.

**Author's Note:**

> Got inspired. Wrote this up. Hope you enjoy!

**\----- 2013 -----**

 

          Michael shouldn’t miss him like he does. Something vague in him feels so much older than he was in the decades past. A drop of rain swims  slowly down the pane of the window and he trails it with his eyes. A soft but restful sadness swims in his chest. He swallows, cupping his chin and curling his feet up farther beneath himself. The room is cold and he... remembers them: the frozen hands and stiff fingers on his skin. The goosebumps no longer rise over him, instead, he senses a certain serenity in this thoughts. The storm picks up out of the window and the late afternoon clouds ripple on the horizon. Without meaning to do so, he shuts his eyes, allowing the picket of weather lull him into a rest. The cold reminds Michael of hi;, his atmosphere, the ambiance. They always liked the cold, enough to cause a person to be woozy.

          A knock on the door of his office tugs him from his reverie and he leans off of his elbow and sits up straighter.  Reluctantly , he tugs his eyes away from the sopping green leaves slapping against the glass . “Papa?”, a tiny voice stretches out from the other side of the door.

          “ Komm herein ,” he replies, clearing his throat. Mick was always a patient person, always waiting and in his head. Michael wonders where he got that from, because it  certainly was not from him.

          His son enters  quietly and then shuts the door behind himself. “ Bist du bereit zu gehen?" ,  _ are you ready to go _ , Mick asks. Mick has gelled his blonde hair. Judging by the smell, Gina must have snatched up some of his good cologne for her brother.

          “ _Na sicher_ ,” Michael lies, stiffening slightly.

          A part of him hopes his son will accept this and walk back out of the room with a curt nod. But Mick has always been smart, too smart for his own good, analytical--now _that_ , _that_ he did get from his father. He wants him to work on his English more because he wishes he had started at a younger age.

          “So, that is not your suit and tie still sitting in the chair where Mama left it?”, he smiles  bemusedly . Michael scowls and Mick peers away from him. “Do you not want to go?”, he mentions after a short interlude of silence. A crackle of thunder shatters in the distance. He takes a few steps inside and settles into the chair across from him.

          “I never said that,” Michael rolls a pen across the table top to distract himself.

          Mick shakes his head with a soft chuckle, “Then get dressed, Papa.” With that he gets up once again, making his way towards the door. Michael consigns himself to this. He got bored with retirement the first time, but the second time? He was still struggling to think of anything other than racing cars. (How did _they_ do it so well?)

          “Oh, Papa,” Mick pauses by the doorway, his hand lingering by the frame. His blonde hair bounces on his forehead.

          “ _Ja?_ ”

          “Are you going to talk to him?”, Michael freezes immediately but Mick will not allow his eyes to shift away from his. He has a gentle, penetrating blue tone to them, ones that one cannot look away from. The type that are soft with kindness and a certain, mature understanding. They only problem is that they remind him of someone else's. They feel so familiar to him. “You two used to be friends, _rede mit ihm_ ,” _talk to him_ , he demands with a scolding tone, shutting the door on his exit.

 _Friends_.

          Michael’s gaze shifts to the forest on the outskirts on the property where it is beginning to flood.

 _Yes_.

          His eyes slide shut once again and there are the cold hands on his sheath once again. He remembers things like how he takes his coffee and what time of the morning he rises; how it feels to wake next to him and the sound of his breath. Lots of things like this never leave us, he believes. And we go, we stumble forward incessantly even as our knees are bruised and knuckles bleeding dry. There isn’t a measure of distance or duration of silence that can prevent the desire between them.

_I suppose it is so._

          He stands up from the desk and busies himself with his suit. Knotting up the tie and he always found a way to make his bow tie somehow crooked. After all this time, he misses Mika Hakkinen more than he should.

 _That we were once good friends_.

 

**\----- 1990 -----**

 

          “We are going to have to stop doing this when we get older.” Michael hears him say this as his own fingers manage their way underneath the band of his waist.  Immediately, he pulls his lips off of their neck and plants his hands on either side of his shoulders to raise himself up . He stares down and Mika’s eyes widen, a flicker of confusion ripples at the edges of his countenance. Michael pauses and allows this to color him for a long occasion when everything is still about them. A thought pressures through his skull then.  He’d like to take this exchange: the large, ice-eyed glimpse Mika gives him and place it in a bottle to open whenever he needs . It’s a stupid thought, so he swallows instead and shifts on the side as Mika slips off of his back.  “Why did you stop?”, he interrogates, knocking his shoulder  playfully against his and nibbling at the undercut of his jaw .

          A slice of setting sunlight carves a path across the couch for a moment. Michael can see all the little dust particles as they catch in the air. He peers over and Mika is studying him for an answer, the strands of his hair light up as though a shard of moonlight. It remains quiet until Michael allows his gaze to linger away to his face. “Stop what?”, he replies, budging himself a little farther to the edge of the couch.

          Mika shrugs, his mouth twitching, “This. You know.” But he forces a grin, a small one that seems to be for comfort. Michael figures then, he would rather not have a bottle of his smile. “We are going to be racing apart one day.  We’re going to get married… kids… you understand,” his voice  carefully drones away until it is nothing but a tense whisper .

          Michael is still frozen and he steals this time to glimpse across the enclosed space of the motor home.  The tap of the faucet is humming with some foreign life in the kitchen; the cheap curtains  are tied and drawn over the thin, glass windows . His knees cradled underneath his chin, he feels like a small child curled up beneath a storm. Having Mika with him would be better than a bottle of him, he supposes. But at least one of those he can carry with him in his coat pocket.  You’re a stupid, young boy , he thinks and he has to remind himself,  _ Twenty and still a child _ . There is a slow drip of something in his core and his heart drums  lazily slow in his chest.

          “We’re never going to have to stop,” he declares and Mika squints his eyes. Michael looks to his visage and then back away just as fast, “We have nothing to stop. This thing between us is nothing in the first place.”

          But this doesn’t ease the tension. It only allows Mika to erupt a little air of laughter. “You’re right,” he chuckles, reaching forward to cup his knee.  Michael turns over and hooks himself over the other side of him, straddling his legs to continue where they left off . But, it is different than every time before. On this occasion, every time that Michael touches him, it is as though he is trying to tell him what cannot meet his lips. So he crams these little sentences on his tongue when he kisses Mika, saying,  perhaps ,  _ I care too much for you _ . They mouth in return across the line of collar on his shoulder,  _ Believe me, I know _ .  Maybe , it is the simple way of deluding each other that this is anything more

          An hour later, Mika slips off of the itchy sofa to find his pants in the dark air. Michael remains laid naked  with one arm behind his head, counting the shafts of their spine poking beneath pale skin. It must be early evening now and the race weekend is over, the next one in three weeks time. He can relax at home for the next few weeks

          Michael folds over and holds himself up on his side. “Eager to leave?”, he frowns and Mika shakes his head with an easy almost sad simper as he struggles into his jeans.

          “Of course not,” he looks up, “I had coins in my pockets, I think they spilled out.”

          Michael may sound a little desperate at this point, but he doesn’t care. “Come on,” he reaches off the couch for their wrist, grabbing it  firmly , “Look for them later.” Mika meets his eyes, tilting his head in thought. They see each other and there is a momentary lapse of time like there isn’t anything else in the world but each other. They are both young, so it is oh, so frightening. Nothing breathes then but a little jolt of electricity running through their hands. Their eye read coves and hidden corners of each other’s souls. The hesitation subsides and Mika nods  hastily .  In only his jeans, he crawls over Michael’s body, hooking underneath his arm and burying his face into the crook of his neck . Michael enjoys this part most of all, shrouding his nose into his hair and shutting his eyes.

          “Will we ever be any older than this?”, the bed of Mika’s finger press softly into the flesh of his hip and his leg wrap over his.

          The question takes him a little by surprise. Michael muses over it a moment, opening his eyes wider.  I hope not . They are only kids after all but they’ve only argued one time while knowing each other. It  just so happened to be the first day they met. Michael has a temper (oh, he definitely does). He wishes in a way that he was like Mika: emotionless, quiet, honest, likable and non-effecting. “What do you mean?”, and Michael isn’t ever in the habit of asking questions to anyone.

          “I mean,” he bites on his inner cheek, “Are we ever going to be anything more than this.”

          It, in a way, feels like a slap. As though he's seated at the end of a revolver and he can hear the bullet in the chamber snapping closer and closer. “No,” he shakes his head, “We can’t.””

          “You’re right.”

          Michael senses them resisting the urge to sigh or say something else.

          It happens every time. But Mika falls asleep first and Michael raises a hand to thread at his hair. They feel almost like a baby, with the way that they are clinging to him. He imagines things in the interlude of being alone staring at the sky. That on these nights he will awake at three in the morning unable to sleep. He should be able to reach beside him in the bed and  ulitmately feel less alone.  He tries: a woman with blonde hair and blue eyes, it meets his fantasy nicely--but he realizes the imagination looks  just a little too much like Mika . But he cannot rid of these stupid, childish thoughts like being a little  _ less alone _ . He goes to sleep instead, their heartbeat a little tune that his sleepy ears fall enchanted to the melody of.

 

____________________________

**1988**

 

          Michael sometimes looks back on his life. He recalls little things. He remembers stupid incidents like crashing a car or crying over an ice-cream when he was eight. Most important, he recalls first time he ever saw Mika. Now that… that one plays on his mind more often than he should. It was early spring. There is a softness to the weather, the scent of new events cling to the air. The first hints of summer arrive in quick beats in his veins as he pounds up the paddock.

          “Who the fuck do you think you are?”, Michael shouts, his helmet hangs in the grip of his sweaty fingers. The first section of his voice  is cut off by the smother of his balaclava. The person he yelled to still hasn’t taken their helmet of.  When they hear his passionate shouts, the stranger pauses and reaches to undo the knots beneath his chin . Michael seems to tower over him but he holds a distance when he stands.

          A crop of white-blonde hair brushes out as the helmet st removed and Michael’s voice catches in his throat.  Blinking, bright teal eyes glance into his without a single expression; the tough almost blank shine glistens like pale fire . “Excuse me?”, he stiffens and his broad shoulders pull back without attempting to size him. He has an accent, quiet and all the letters  are preceived as though they are being tumbled about in a tin-box.

          Michael is at a loss for words. For the first time in his life he senses embarrassment and heat in his cheeks flare up with every still second. “I…”, but he cuts himself off and the stranger tips his head at an angle, his eyelid twitching. The blanket of flowing spring breeze rolls over the fuzz of blonde hair, trestles it.

          “Are you going to say something?”, they aren’t growing impatient or angry, it is a genuine question.

          The temper within him cools and his shoulders relax. A certain calm nestles itself in his ribs.  Their frigid emotions fan his flames and it reminds him why certain memories are worth remembering at all . It rises in him,  is blurted out. “Go out with me sometime,” he stammers.

          His forehead knits, two bleached brows draw together like pillow feathers. “You yell at me…”, he muses, “And now you want me to…. Be around you?”

          “Yes,” Michael sighs.

          “Hm,” he hums, chin bouncing.

          “Go out with me,” Michael takes a step forward towards them.

          He snickers lightly and it has energy like a tense but frosty winter afternoon. “Are you going to ask a question now?”

          “No,” Michael hardens, “Just go with me someday.”

          The stranger allows for an occasion of quietude during which there's only the barest of intimacy: eye contact . He keeps their thoughts buried up inside of there, behind the slivers of ashen blue and silver. Then... he nods, “Okay,” and then without another word he peels away with a helmet underneath their muscled arm.

          Something uncontrollable rises in Michael’s chest. “What’s your name?”, he calls.

          “Mika,” he smirks and it is the first expression of his that he has had the chance to witness: a short, impressioned smile like he chews on his words .

          “Aren’t you going to ask for mine?”

          “I already know yours, Michael.”

 _Michael. Is that my name? It’s so common._ The conversation was making him dizzy and forgetful.

          Mika leaves and he is left only with his considerations. _Oh lord_ , he rubs his forehead frustratedly, _what mess did you get yourself into this time, Michael?_

 

________________________________

**1990**

 

          When Michael gets angry, he tends to lose a bit of control (an understatement). If he  is taken out during a race by another driver, he will confront them. If another driver confronts him, he will shove them away. His mind shuts down and all he comprehends is the white flash of hot, anger surging through his joints.  Sometimes he will punch things so  furiously he doesn’t notice his injuries until he peers into the mirror . Then, of course, he gets furious with the mirror as well and ends up picking at the glass embedded into his knuckles. But he has never hit Mika, he has never snapped at Mika. There is something vague and disarming about him.

          Take Macau. Mika managed to scrounge his Formula 3 car into pole position only to  be taken out on the last lap while leading. Michael won’t admit it was his fault of course, but then again, he doesn’t know anyone who would in this case. Mika tasted dust that day while Michael drank sweet champagne from the top spot of the podium. He must admit he’d forgotten all about what he had done. He sits stiff in a team debriefing for a few hours with a thin, white t-shirt clinging to his sticky skin. At one point, his engineer flicks him in the forehead for not paying attention.

          “Warum bist du abgelenkt? ”, _why are you distracted_ , they note and a mechanic chides him from behind. Michael flinches, rubbing his temple. Instead of answering like a dog or making a joke (both of which he is not good at), he simply shrugs and sits up slightly. Mika’s name runs at the back of his head and he bites on his tongue to contain himself.

          It is cloudy that night. He knows this not because he had actually looked to see, but because he cannot see his shoes on the pavement.  Michael’s temperature drums as he climbs up the steps of the motor home and manages a few rough knocks before dragging his hand away .  For a moment, he stands  helplessly with the Autumn chill running over his bare arms and his overalls still hanging off his hips . He wonders if he should leave him to sort his mood by himself. But he shakes his head as the lock clicks:  _ you never said sorry, you do realize that? _ He sighs, his shoulders falling and he pinches his fingers together  sharply .  _ I know _ . As expected, the first thing Mika does when he opens the door and scopes him over is attempt to slam the door in his face.

          “Wait--”, Michael cries as he pushes on the door, wincing as it slams on his foot.

          “Go away,” Mika hisses, but not in a poisonous manner. Only because Michael has convinced himself to come here in the first place, he struggles. The door shuts in his face, the wind of it making him grab the rail to steady himself. But even as it is silent, Mika’s shadow still looms from the other side of the door.

          Michael tightens his jaw, pressing his mouth to the crack. “Please, Mika?”, he has never begged to a single person in his entire life. It makes him feel insignificant. There isn't reply but he knows he’s still there waiting. A surge of anger shivers through him and he raises a fist to slam against the door. At the last moment, he freezes, holds it back, calms and then clears the tremble in his throat. “You can’t leave me out here,” he mutters.

          “Didn’t I just do that?”, Mika muffles.

          “I might freeze to death.”

          “So be it.”

          “Please?”, he sighs, “Will you at least let me apologize?” He can almost see the smirk of pride radiating off of their face. The lock unclicks after a long dramatic pause and Mika steps aside.

          “Are you going to come in, or what?” Mika has a bed in his motorhome. A makeshift mattress with aged springs. He has a few candles lit on the table in the center of the carpet. “The power isn’t working,” and Michael can see his breath in the air. Mika doesn’t take note of his sudden shiver and settles onto the bed, leaning against the wall behind it. “You came to say something,” he scrutinizes him, “Correct?”

          Michael rubs the back of his upper arm. Maybe it is a nervous tick or perhaps he is attempting to heat his skin. He settles on the edge of the mattress, picking at the threads of his overalls to distract himself. “I’m sorry,” he mutters incoherently.

          “Pardon?”, Mika leans forward, “What was that?”

          Michael snaps his head up and he is wearing an amusing smile that plays at their lips. “I said,” he swallows the anger climbing in his throat, “I’m sorry.” His teeth are clenched.

          “I heard you the first time,” Mika raises a brow, “I  just wanted to hear you actually say it.” But Michael doesn’t form a word. His attention drifts to the window, a weight bobbing in his gut. It couldn’t of been more than seven in the evening but he  was exhausted . The room offered a cozy warmth, almost like freezing to death. It’s uncontrollable, the pang his temper seizes in his ribs. It’s so alive with rampant rupture. “Hey,” Mika reaches over to him and his facial expression deviates. Michael jumps when their hand closes over his elbow to draw him closer. He keeps his blank stare to the floor and a shadowed corner of the room.

          “Hey,” Michael breathes softly past aching lips.

          “Are you alright?”, he sounds concerned. Michael parts his mouth and then closes it again. Always when he speaks his mind, it never comes out exactly how he wants it. Mika understands this somehow, because he squeezes his hand, “If you don’t want to talk, you don’t have to.”

          “No,” Michael snaps, turning his gaze to him. Mika doesn’t draw back, or flinch, but his grip becomes a little lighter. “Sorry,” his face heats, “I do want to tell you.” The Finn settles back, nodding his head after a slow moment. “Sometimes  I think of things,” there is a rubber band he slaps back against the bed of his wrist.

          “What things?”

          “That what if I can’t be enough,” he cannot feel the cold any longer, “What if I can’t be what everyone wants?” He hasn’t questioned himself before and the insecurity of it all makes him uncomfortable. “Or, what anyone needs.  I think ,” he swallows, “ I wonder if  maybe being what I want is enough, or what I need.” It swells in his throat, something what he doesn’t understand so he shuts his eyes. He doesn’t want to see Mika’s face; he doesn’t want to picture his disapproval in his mind for the rest of his life.

          The tips of Mika’s fingers  casually  meet his jaw silence, tipping his chin up, leading it as you would a blind man. His voice breaks the silence. “Michael,” he shudders  gently and his warm breath meets his cheek. “Michael, open your eyes,” and he does. The stark realism in his eyes disarms him. His palm cups at his jaw, draws it  just a little closer to him.  They settle in the darkness of the motorhome with candles like torches in their winter paradise .  Michael wonders how they view him at this moment with the open vulnerability in his own eyes open to the wide surroundings . All things managed to feel breathless then.

          It rises from no where as all things do. As most are born. Nothing... and then something. A odd sense of panic rises in his chest. Michael leans forward, his fingers clutching onto the front of Mika's shirt. “What do you want me to be?”, he sputters with speed. He rips on the lapel to pull him closer and Mika’s eyes widen in surprise. “What do you want me to be, Mika?”, his hands quiver, "Do you want me to be decades or a century? The moon? The stars? A Ferrari? How about the sea and everything in it?  What do you want me to be? ”, he is quite aware than he is sounding fanatic but not a part of him care.  “I can be anything,” he un-twists his fingers from their clothing and stutters his glimpse in the opposite direction . “Anything you want, Mika,” he feels shallow, “And I’ll be that for you.”

          Mika doesn’t move for a long occasion. _Say something, please, anything,_ he begs. A hand meets him following the suspended pause, Mika grabs his shoulders and shoves him upright. Michael hadn’t realized that there were tears in his eyes until a thumb swiped across his cheek bone. “I want you to be the best version of yourself,” he replies slowly.

          “What if I can’t be that?”, Michael bites on his lower lip.

          Mika shrugs, “Nobody is the best version of themselves. The only people who think that are lying to themselves.” _Leave it to the Finn to be honest_. “But,” he smoothes the creases in front of his stomach, “The best we can do is work to that. I guess the only question is, what do you want to be? Whatever you want to be, that’s the best version of yourself.”

                    Michael blinks transparently into space for a minute as words spell themselves on his tongue. He finds a place that night, in between arms and tender kisses; soft whispers and the warmth of embrace, a slice of fierceness marking the touch. He hopes that he doesn’t get lost in their soul. It’s under a blanket of stars, a sway and tune of the universe creating. But it won’t go any farther than this. Both of them lay on a bedding of letters, moaning these into words.  _Be open, undress your mind tonight one word at a time…_

          Michael doesn’t want to get any older.

**Author's Note:**

> My Tumblr is @pieregasly I never get any comments but to reiterate: 1) I read every single one 2) it inspires me to write me 3) even if it is one word, just do it, please. Thank you for reading! I take requests.


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